(Minghui.org) Ms. Chen Ping, 47, from Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, was admitted to prison in November 2023 to serve a two-year term for practicing Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Chen, a lecturer at the West China Normal University in Nanchong City, was arrested on July 26, 2020 and released under house arrest the next day. She stood trial at the Shunqing District Court on April 21, 2022 and was allowed to go home after the hearing. She was summoned to the local community office on March 17, 2023. As soon as she arrived, she was taken back into custody. A court worker who was waiting there announced that she was sentenced to two years.
Ms. Chen was taken to the Nanchong City Detention Center. She wrote an appeal but it was withheld by the guards, who also barred her family from visiting her. Her loved ones then hired a lawyer but the police in charge of her case threatened to arrest the lawyer and suspend his law license if he tried to see her or appeal on her behalf.
Ms. Chen thus missed the appeals deadline (which is usually within ten days of receipt of the verdict). She was admitted to the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison (located in Longquanyi District of the capital city of Chengdu) in November 2023.
This is not the first time that Ms. Chen has been targeted for her faith. She was previously given an unknown prison term in 2011 by the same Shunqing District Court.
Details of Ms. Chen’s Latest Persecution
Ms. Chen was arrested on July 26, 2020, after two middle-school students reported her for talking to them about Falun Gong. The arresting officers from the Zhongcheng Police Station interrogated her with torture for 38 hours straight. They put her in a straight jacket and did not give her anything to eat during the marathon interrogation. They released her under house arrest the next night.
Torture illustration: Straight jacket
The police submitted Ms. Chen’s case to the Shunqing District Procuratorate around January 2021. She wrote letters to officials handling her case, urging them not to participate in the persecution. But the officials kept trying to pressure her into pleading guilty. The procuratorate indicted her about one year later and forwarded her case to the Shunqing District Court.
Ms. Chen stood trial on April 21, 2022 and it was unclear whether she had legal representation. Most of the evidence submitted by the police was fabricated, including forged witness signatures.
Although the court claimed that it was having an “open trial,” Ms. Chen’s sister, brother, and sister-in-law were all prohibited from attending. Only her husband and parents were allowed into the courtroom. The gallery was filled with police officers, residential committee staff members, and security officers from Ms. Chen’s college. There was a heavy police force outside the courthouse, and they claimed they were there to prevent local practitioners from gathering there.
The court sentenced Ms. Chen to two years on March 17, 2023. She was summoned to her local community office that day and taken back into custody as soon as she arrived.
Related report:
College Teacher Gets Two Years for Talking to Teenagers about Falun Gong
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